TwinSpires.com players outperform public in promotional races

Four successful $5 win bets from the 11 stakes races at Calder and Gulfstream was all that stood between TwinSpires.com players and a share of 1-million TSC Elite Points on Saturday, and 128 players cashed on the promotion from the 314 who played at least four races.

That winning percentage of 40.76% is 53.17% more than the expected 26.61% winners of four or more races based on the off odds of the 11 qualifying races. I.e., on average for every two players throughout the country that cashed at least four win bets on these 11 races, there were three on TwinSpires.com who did so.

It must be those free Brisnet.com Ultimate Past Performances and Insider Picks & Power Plays giving TwinSpires.com players an edge!

Anyway, the winners of the 11 races follow with odds & percentage of win pool to reflect probability of winning in parenthesis: Caroline Lizard (34.9-to-1, 2.28%), Centrique (9-to-10, 43.16%), Ribo Bibo (1-to-2, 54.67%), Speaking of Which (23-to-5, 14.64%), Goodtimehadbyall (29-to-5, 12.81%), Casba (11-to-10, 39.05%), Deanaallen’skitten (9-to-10, 43.16%), Valiant Girl (42.8-to-1, 1.87%), Point Finish (19-to-5, 17.08%), Major Marvel (17-to-10, 30.37%), and Nevada Kid (29-to-5, 12.81%).

If you had played all 11 races the odds of hitting all 11 were better than 473-million-to-1, and even at least seven was 345-to-1. Of the 84 players who did play all 11 races, no one had seven, but three people did have six, which was more than double the expectation that 1.44 people could select six winners from 11 races at those odds.

The odds of picking at least four winners from those 11 races was 2.76-to-1, meaning on average 22-23 players from 84 (26%-27%) would be able to do it, but on TwinSpires, nearly double—45 (53.5%)—made it happen!

A tough task when picking 11 races with these odds is getting zero right, as that was about a 30-to-1 chance, which suggests 2-3 of our 84 players should have gotten blanked, but it actually only happened to one player (this admittedly is tougher to gauge because once you lost eight races it’s impossible to get four right, so we can only assume that those who went oh-fer (and even one-fer) 11 probably put all their picks in ahead of time, and those playing race by race would have stopped at oh-fer eight, one-fer nine, or two-fer ten.

Still, it’s clear that TwinSpires.com players out-performed the public on this one. The good news is that they get to split 1-million TSC Elite Points for their saavy; the bad news is there’s less points to go around! Good thing they have the extra win pool winnings to ease their pain.